This invention relates to a system for recognizing handwritten letters suited for applying to a local area network.
A conventional handwritten letter recognition device adapted to read and recognize handwritten letters comprises a reading unit for optically reading handwritten letters and a recognition unit for recognizing the handwritten letters read by the reading unit. The conventional handwritten letter recognition device includes one recognition unit dedicated to one reading unit in the recognition device, and is operated independently from other recognition units.
Recently, the advent of the local area network system which is intended for the effective utilization of common resources in a local area makes it desirable that the handwritten letter recognition device is connected to the local area network as one of the terminal hardware so that other terminal hardware provided on the network may utilize the result of the recognition made by the recognition device. Further, it is desired that a plurality of reading units are connected to the network so as to share one recognition unit provided on the network.
However, when the conventional recognition device of the above-described type is connected to the local area network, a large amount of time is required for the transmission of information supplied from the recognition device through the transmission path of the network. For this reason, working efficiency of the network is so low that the device of this type cannot be applied in a practical manner.